Biden’s Rigid Approach to Foreign Policy Is Main Cause of Its Many Failures

One reason President Biden’s foreign policy is suffering one setback after another is his team’s inability to adapt to fast-changing global realities. The first clue of Mr. Biden’s lack of foreign policy agility was the decision to fulfill a campaign vow by completely withdrawing from Afghanistan. The retreat was completed in August 2021 — with horrifying consequences because Mr. Biden ignored advice from top military advisers to adjust his plans and leave a small number of GIs to oversee the situation.Since then, the blows have kept on coming.Mr. Biden today is attending the Summit of the Americas at Los Angeles, where he is being forced to eat crow by giving an audience to a Latin American nemesis, President Bolsonaro of Brazil. The Brasilia right winger has expressed doubts that Mr. Biden won the 2020 election.The Americas Summit, which was supposed to center on immigration, is beset by failures, chief among them the absence of the top countries — including Mexico — where Vice President Harris vowed to search for the “root causes” of our failed border policies.Blame Mr. Biden’s lack of preparation. He should have read the riot act to President Lopez Obrador months in advance of the summit. Yet, even as it became clear that leftist leaders would skip the powwow, Mr. Biden plowed on. Canceling a useless gabfest would have been better than the blow to America’s prestige that the Los Angeles affair has wrought. Also today, it became apparent that Mr. Biden’s entire Iran policy may have suffered a “fatal blow.” That was the term the director of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, used to address Tehran’s latest obfuscation of the nuclear watchdog.In recent days the Islamic Republic disconnected cameras the IAEA uses to monitor Iranian nuclear sites. Addressing the agency’s board of governors today, Mr. Grossi said that if cameras are not back on line within three to four weeks, it “would be a fatal blow” to attempts at renewal of the Iran deal.Mr. Biden’s team doesn’t see it that way.“We are prepared to conclude a deal on the basis of the understandings we negotiated with our European Allies in Vienna over many months,” the American secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said in a statement today. “Such a deal has been available since March, but we can only conclude negotiations and implement it if Iran drops its additional demands.” Like a deer caught in headlights, the Obama administration team that orchestrated the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — which now is Mr. Biden’s national security team — remains married to the idea that, no matter what, the Iran nuclear deal is worth renewing. Love the JCPOA or hate it, its renewal has been on life support for months. In March, Iran walked out on Vienna talks conducted with America through intermediaries, including most notably Russian diplomats. Washington should have announced right then, or shortly afterward, an end to the entire farce, regardless of Mr. Biden’s campaign vow to reverse his predecessor’s Iran policy. Yet, as in the case of the Afghanistan withdrawal and the Los Angeles summit, the White House is yet to offer an alternative to its initial Iran policies. It is as if once policy decisions have been made, no facts on the ground can upend them. Fact: The current dearth of global energy resources is a major driver of inflation. Unchanging Biden administration policy: Climate change is threatening the globe’s future.Unconfused by reality, Mr. Biden issued an executive decree to increase the manufacturing of solar panels, including by removing sanctions on imported parts made in Communist China’s labor camps. Also untouched by reality, our climate warrior president is canceling drilling licenses in Alaska and elsewhere in America. Meanwhile, the president offers to kiss the oil-bearing hands of the world’s worst regimes, including Venezuela. Its non-invitation to the Los Angeles summit led to Mr. Lopez Obrador’s walkout. Yet, even as what is left of the Venezuelan oil industry produces the world’s most polluting crude, Mr. Biden offers to ease sanctions on Caracas. Saudi Arabia is another oil producer Mr. Biden is now courting, regardless of his past vow to turn it into a “pariah” state. Now he is attempting to arrange a meeting with Riyadh’s de-facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. His aides say such a meeting could promote a new Saudi-Israeli pact, adding a top Arab leader to the Abraham Accords. Such a coup could turn into Mr. Biden’s crown foreign policy achievement: Beyond the Mideast peace dividend, a new Saudi-Israeli pact under America’s auspices would create a strong regional coalition to confront Iran. That alliance would present a potent alternative to Mr. Biden’s initial instinct: betting all his marbles on mullah diplomacy. That is, of course, unless a partisan Washington chorus convinces Mr. Biden to stick with another of his initial instincts — shunning the Saudi prince and treating him as the world’s leading human rights violator.If he listens to policy advisers he values, and to his inner voice, Mr. Biden’s upcoming Mideast trip will turn into yet another futile promotion of a dead policy: seeking Israeli-Palestinian accord where none can be found.

Biden’s Rigid Approach to Foreign Policy Is Main Cause of Its Many Failures

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